


There Are No Voices

by NATuralhabitat



Series: Stories Written for School [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Apocalypse, Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 02:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21171644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NATuralhabitat/pseuds/NATuralhabitat
Summary: It's the end of times and there are voices.





	There Are No Voices

It was 7 AM when I awoke to the police officer frantically knocking at my door. I opened the door and the harried man at my door told me and anyone in my home to pack a small bag and evacuate immediately. Then, without any further explanation, he rushed away to the next door. I couldn’t believe it, this had to be a prank. I went to my living room and switched on the television, flipping it to the local news. Sure enough, the only thing on the channel was a black screen with the words:  
New York City  
EVACUATION NOTICE  
Effective Immediately  
All New York City residents are encouraged to evacuate their homes. Pack a small bag consisting of clothing and small valuables. Only pack what you can carry. 

I supposed it was true, I doubted the entire city of New York was playing a prank on me, so I reluctantly went to my bedroom and tried to pack a bag. Deciding what to take and what to leave behind was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’ve never been a materialistic person, I’ve always valued people and experiences more than things, but nonetheless, I found myself struggling with leaving behind any of my clothes, leaving behind the life that I’ve built for myself. In the end, I packed two simple outfits, some cash that I had stashed away, and a picture frame with a picture of my mom, my grandma, and my great-grandma. 

The act of actually evacuating was not easy. People rushed through the streets, the millions of occupants of Manhattan weaving their way through the gridded streets. The police and the military reinforcements tried their best to keep the crowd calm, but it was a futile quest. People pushed and shoved mercilessly; if a person fell they were trampled, not given a second glance. I couldn’t hear anything over the screaming and shouting of the frightened people around me. 

I clutched my bag tightly to my chest, afraid of losing that last piece of my home that I had to myself at the moment, possibly ever again. I maneuvered through the crowd, following the pack. I walked by a police officer with a megaphone and at last, I heard what the police officers had been shouting into the uproarious crowd for the past hour and a half. “Don’t look back. Whatever you hear, don’t look back. The voices you hear are not what you think they are. Don’t look back”. I didn’t understand the words that I had heard from him. Voices? I hadn’t heard any voices. Still, better to be safe than sorry, I pointedly did not look behind me, no matter how tempting the thought of disobeying orders was.

Not turning back wasn’t that difficult. To navigate the crowd without crashing into the person in front of me I had to pay close attention to where I was walking and what I was doing. It wasn’t until I heard her that I faced any actual difficulty. 

Her voice rang beautifully in the air, an angelic hymn, a siren song. Her voice was pure and true, though I could still hear the screaming and crying in the background, somehow her sweet voice was the one that I heard above all. I stopped dead in my tracks, my breath catching in my throat. The people behind me groaning and shoving and when I proved to stand firm, moving around me. I swallowed thickly and clenched my fists, I wasn’t going to turn around. She spoke again, her velvet words telling me how beautiful I’d gotten, how proud she was of me, how she couldn’t wait to hold me in her arms. Tears came to my eyes, but I remembered the words of the police officer, “The voices you hear are not what you think they are”. I wasn’t going to turn around. 

The more I tried to ignore her voice the louder her voice got. Going from seeming like she was standing just behind me to her residing in my head, her voice bouncing off the inside of my skull and forcing sobs out of my mouth as I wage a war between my mind and my heart. I shook with the effort of keeping myself in place, with the effort of not turning around and running anywhere the voice in my head wanted me to run. I shook and I sobbed and then suddenly her voice asked me in a cold, cutting tone, distinctively hers but not sounding anything like the woman I had known: “Who are you fooling? What are you fighting for? You have nothing here”. 

The words made a sob catch in my throat, my trembling ceased, I opened my eyes, which I had at one point squeezed tightly shut. She was right, after all. I had nothing and no one here. Without her, my life was nothing. I took a shaky breath and turned around. At first, I saw nothing, and then I saw her. Even more beautiful and radiant than I remember her. I had only a moment to appreciate her breathtaking beauty before I felt something drip down my cheek from my eye. I wiped my cheek and looked to find crimson red smeared across my finger. Then, the pain overtook me. I was soon bleeding out of every orifice, and then seemingly out of my skin itself. The lovely, dulcet tones of her voice soothing me through the whole thing and assuring me that it would be okay. As my pain increased, so did the shrillness of her voice. As my pain went from unbearable to absolutely oppressive and completely consuming, her voice stopped being a comfort and instead became like a knife in my ears, somehow making my pain worse than it had been. I felt more pain than I ever had before, more pain than I’m sure anyone could ever survive, all the while, a sick parody of her voice screeching in my ear all the while. I screamed but it came out garbled and muffled by the blood pouring out of my mouth.

I felt everything as the pain flashed white behind my eyes, I heard every voice, no longer just her voice. I’m not sure exactly how I knew, but somehow I did. I was hearing every voice, speaking to me and taunting me. Then, everything went black. The world is black and I feel nothing and there are no voices.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for my Fantasy and Horror literature class. The favorite that I've written thus far.


End file.
